Living in the Trees

Staying at the Phantom Forest deserves its own blog entirely. We arrived a little after 4pm and had to drive down a smaller road off the main highway in order to find the entrance to the Lodge. The lodge is marked with a cute little sign and a big iron gate that requires you to call the gatehouse in order to enter. Once inside the gates you park your car. An attendant comes out of the "gatehouse" and instructs you to leave your bags on the curb, the driver will pick them up. You are then shown to the gatehouse where you can enjoy a cup of tea while sitting in plush chairs while you wait for your driver to arrive.

The driver has a small kelly green SUV. He loads up your luggage and drives you up to the

main reception "hut". At this point there are several wood "huts" that are smattered around the reception area. I barely had time to look around when the reception lady came running out and informed us we were late for our "therapy sessions". Um...what? For a few minutes I thought we had somehow inadvertently booked ourselves at a couples therapy retreat. Or did Justin think we were having issues that he failed to tell me about? and thought we needed couples therapy? A few seconds of confusion lead us to realize that Justin had booked us with

massages, to surprise me, but had not received a confirmation ema

il and we therefore, had no idea we were late! Two seconds after this re

alization the woman was taking me purse, jacket and backpack, handing them to Justin and ushering me up some weather beaten wooden steps, where I was met by a lovely young woman in a white suite, who also ushered me along, thi

s time into a small hut. So, within 10 minutes of arriving at our tree house hotel I was face down on a massage table, looking out at wall of glass into a thick lush forest in South Africa. Deee-lish!

Justin was waiting for me when I was all done to quickly show me the way back to our "tree suite" before it was his turn in the massage hut. A

few minutes of walking along well kept plank paths, through twists and turns, higher and higher, lead us to our tree suite where he threw me inside and told me he'd see me in a bit. This little tree suite was absurd. In front of me was a huge glass window overlooking our deck, with an awesome view of the marshlands and harbor of Knysna. To the left was our bedroom with a canopy bed (with mosquito netting), and to the right a bathroom, larger than the bedroom, with a shower that extends slightly onto the deck, with glass walls, and a tub under a large skylight and large window. We practically showered in the trees. Best of all, built into the

deck, is a jacuzzi bathtub. The walls were a thatched straw of some sort, the whole place made from wood beams. We were very much in a tree house despite us only being a few feet off the ground. The ground of the back of the hut dropped off considerably, so the deck was several feet off the ground.

There are two restaurants on the grounds of the echo reserve. Both of which have great reputations. We had a fantastic full six course meal with some very complicated flav

ors. The mornings breakfast was also just as yummy but was made better by the fact that there are a clan of about 7 Vervets (small monkeys) that live in the forest around the lodge and have learned that they can steal food from the hotel and its guests. Breakfast is served outside on the deck and one of the owners of the lodge stands on the deck with a paintball gun, looking like a female Rambo, scouring the trees for any sign of an incoming "attack." The monkeys have a major sweat tooth and as soon as the paintball gun goes away the mother descends on your breakfast table, taking or eating anything she can. One of the servers was left to guard us for a short time and he turned his back for a minute so that we could see the monkeys in action. The mama monkey was on our table in the matter of seco

nds licking Justin's knife and sticking her face in our milk. It was hysterical and cute all at the same time, but we could see how they would become a pain in the neck.

We asked for a late check out that day so that we could walk around the grounds a bit and relax in the morning. I think we took like 8 showers in the 20 hours we were there because the bathroom was so cool. It was definitely a high class, awesome place. We would LOVE to return.